I'm a transgender girl happily on a journey to looking better, being more feminized and overcoming adversity. Whether in your teens or way beyond, if you’re a transgender girl, this is for you. Like an embassy in a hostile land, this is the place to gain strength, to get empowering information and to belong. I made this place based on what I've learned; I hope it helps you. Welcome home.

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When to Start Body-Feminizing Hormones

On a forum, someone asked a question about the pros and cons of starting body-feminizing hormones before vs. after publicly coming out as a trans girl. Here’s what I replied … and some additional thoughts.

I started on hormones maybe two or three years in, and I’m glad. The amount of Spironolactone I was on eventually ended up affecting my mental well-being because my blood electrolysis was way off before the routine lab tests caught that. Meanwhile I was putting on more weight than I wanted to, and I was feeling glum and non-sexy. I made some pretty bad decisions while in this mode. At the time I was looking fairly good, I’m told, even though mentally I felt bad. Normally I’m brave, energized, logical and highly sexual, so feeling mentally fragile, asexual and lacking energy … that was a starkly new unpleasant experience for me.

In retrospect, I’m glad it happened because I ended up with a lot more empathy with girls whose bad day begins even before, if ever, she gets out of bed, due to her mental state being “I feel icky.” Ironically by now I understand the mindset so well that someone new, lovely and wonderful ended up becoming a delightful romantic partner after I won the debate about whether or not she was at her core, unlovable due to her unusual brain — ironic since she is sweet, thoughtful, kind and giving. To some extent, I could relate to how she felt bad. I could accept her, and comfort her — and we could talk about how she felt in a way that ended up being a catalyst for her making several changes in her life, as a result of which she ended up much happier and healthier.

So, there was much silver lining to this cloud, but a huge and dark cloud it nevertheless was. Had I also looked awkwardly masculine at the time, it would have been much harder for me, I’m sure.